Tfie Doctrine of Evolution. 451 



describe exhaustively the evolution of an individual or- 

 ganism. He had got a standard of high and low degrees of 

 organization ; and the next thing in order was to apply this 

 standard to the whole hierarchy of animals and plants 

 according to their classified relationships and their succes- 

 sion in geological time. This was done with most brilliant 

 success. From the earliest records in the rocks the general 

 advance in types of organization has been an advance in 

 definiteness, coherence, and heterogeneity. The method of 

 evolution in the life-history of the animal and vegetal king- 

 doms has been like the method of evolution in the life- 

 history of the individual. 



To go into the inorganic world with such a formula might 

 seem rash. But as the growth of organization is essentially 

 a particular kind of redistribution of matter and motion, 

 and as redistribution of matter and motion is going on uni- 

 versally in the inorganic world, it is interesting to inquire 

 whether in such simple approaches toward organization as 

 we find there is any approach toward the characteristics of 

 organic evolution as above described. It was easy for Mr. 

 Spencer to show that the change from a nebula into a planet- 

 ary system conforms to the definition of evolution in a way 

 that is most striking and suggestive. But in studying the 

 inorganic world Mr. Spencer was led to modify his formula in 

 a way that vastly increased its scope. He came to see that 

 the primary feature of evolution is an integration of matter 

 and concomitant dissipation of motion. According to cir- 

 cumstances this process may or not be attended with exten- 

 sive internal rearrangements and development of organiza- 

 tion. The continuous internal rearrangement implied in 

 the development of organization is possible only where 

 there is a medium degree of mobility among the par- 

 ticles, a plasticity such as is secured only by those peculiar 

 chemical combinations which make up what we call organic 

 matter. In the inorganic world, where there is an approach 

 to organization there is an adumbration of the law as realized 

 in the organic world. But in the former what strikes us 

 most is the concentration of the mass with the retention of 

 but little internal mobility; in the latter what strikes us 

 most is the wonderful complication of the transformations 

 wrought by the immense amount of internal mobility 

 retained. These transformations are to us the mark, the 

 distinguishing feature of life. 



Having thus got the nature of the differences between the 



